This wasn’t the post I was going to publish but something cropped up that changed my plan.

Recently I spoke at Revolution Conf and I had a really cracking day there with some smashing feedback on my talk.

I presented about mistakes I’d made running a web design business (there have been a few!) I’ll put the slides on line if you like but I want to get on to a specific point: I got some feedback from the smashing Andy Davies and Andy Clarke which I want to share with you as I think there is stuff to learn there.

Andy D ticked me off (he’s allowed to, he’s a friend) for almost apologising for my point of view. Andy C picked up a similar point on his cracking Unfinished Business podcast*; Andy makes a  point (around 20:41) that it ‘infuriated‘ him that I was apologising about perhaps the size of my business and clients etc.

Hmmmm…

Fair dos, maybe there was something in that. When you share the stage with people working for GOV.UK, Twitter etc you can feel a little intimidated. And, to be fair, many conferences seem to me to default to the typical  names in web design who all seem to be working on massive sites for household names etc – I don’t think we see a lot about the smaller outfits; the people/teams; in short, the smaller businesses.

Stand Tall, Stand Proud

I won’t sweet talk it; working for yourself can be tough – especially in the early days (but it certainly does get better). And those days can easily knock your confidence (more on that in a future post). So maybe what we were seeing there was an echo of those early confidence knocks. Maybe.

Lets clear this up though in case there is any confusion: I’m very proud of the projects I selectively work on, I work with really talented people and I believe this shines through in the work I produce. I’m proud of where these projects has taken my clients and, as I said in my talk, I genuinely enjoy working with them (life’s too short not too).

So, I will take my talk feedback on board. I will not be apologising again (well, not for that particular mistake!). Here endeth the apologies. Au revoir apology-dom. Apologies can “jog on”.

And you guys should be proud to; holding together a business in this day and age is a tough task; we’re doing a sterling job here and we should hold our heads up high. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it on a Friday morning

Joel

(*co-hosting Andy’s Clarke’s podcast was Liz Elcoate who I’ve not heard of before. Liz has some great experience in running a business etc; would be great to chat to her or get her on this blog at some point. Liz also co-hosts The Freelance Web podcast which looks really interesting).

Update: 4th Oct 2013 – made a few small amends before tweeting; primarily because I published the article before I was blooming ready in the first place!